Backup your Local Website on your Hard Drive in Expression Web

Abstract: Has it ever happened to you that your website has disappeared from your hard drive or some files went missing, or even worst case, your hard drive crashed? If not then you are lucky, but if it has happened, you may have learnt a lesson to backup your web frequently.

Has it ever happened to you that your website has disappeared from your hard drive or some files went missing, or even worst case, your hard drive crashed? If not then you are lucky, but if it has you may have learnt a lesson to backup your web frequently. Unfortunately, Expression Web does not have a Recycle bin, so any accidental deletions would mean they are gone forever.

In this article, we will explore how to publish your local web on your hard drive to back it up.

1. Open the site you wish to back up using Expression Web.

2. At this point we would want to recalculate the hyperlinks. Go to Tools > Recalculate Hyperlinks.

3. Do one of the following:

a. Go to Site > Publishing Settings…

b. In Site View, choose the Publishing tab (at the bottom of the window) and click on Publishing Settings

4. In the ‘Site Settings’ dialog box, choose the Publishing tab.

5. Click ‘Add’ to open the Connection Settings window.

Enter following details in the window: a. Name: Enter the name of the site followed by the word ‘Backup’.

b. Connection Type: Choose ‘File System’ from the dropdown menu.

c. Location: Type the folder name where you want to publish the backup. The path could be ‘C:\Users\Minal\Documents\My Web Sites\mysite2’ or you can browse to an empty web, if you have created one for the backup.

d. Click Add.

6. Click OK to exit the Site Settings dialog box. The Publishing tab in the Site View should display the newly created backup location in the ‘Connect To:’ dropdown menu.

If the folder does not exist, Expression Web will prompt you to create it. Click ‘Yes’ to let Expression Web create it.

7. Click on ‘Connect to Publishing Destination’ option on the ‘Publishing’ tab in Site View.

8. You will see your website in the left column and the newly created backup site in the right column. The arrows in between both the columns will let you publish and synchronize files.

NOTE: The arrows will be activated only when you select a file to publish.

9. Under the View dropdown menu, choose either ‘All Files’ or ‘Changed Files’.

Depending on what you have chosen to be published from the View dropdown menu, the left column will be populated.

10. To publish all the files to the site, do either of the following:

a. Site > Publish All Files to “Name of the web”.

b. Shift + Ctrl + A.

c. On the Standard or Common Toolbar, choose the ‘Publish all files in your site’

d. Using the Shift key, highlight all the files in the left column and then click the first arrow.

11. When the publishing process has begun, you will see the files being transferred. And when the process is complete, you will see the following message that says uploading has been done.

Hope you liked the article and I thank you for viewing it.

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Minal Agarwal, Expression Web MVP, MCDST, works as a freelance web designer (SaffronStroke) working on Expression Web, Photoshop and other Graphical tools. As a hobby, she also runs a famous Food site called Foodatarian.com. Follow her on twitter @ saffronstroke

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I used not to like backing up online not until, I learnt a hard way when my hard drive crashed last year. it's painful losing important stuff especially out of ignorance. Now, I do take it as a serious thing and it works so well for me. Though any computer disaster occurs,or accidentantly delete a file om my computer, I can easily recover my data without hassling. I use www.safecopybackup.com. They have 3GB free account for trial.